Site of Campus of Old Columbia College

Van Alstyne's college came from North Texas's late-century rush of small private colleges. The Handbook of Texas says the building had eight large rooms, including a chapel with a stage, and that enrollment reached 578 by 1894. It also says a fire in the late 1890s ended the school, which never reopened. The marker tells it differently, with the building serving the public schools until a fire in 1915. The two accounts do not agree, so exactly when Columbia College stopped teaching is unsettled.

What the plaque says

Site of Campus of Old Columbia College In 1889 an association composed of merchants and landowners from the Van Alstyne area saw the need for quality education and established Columbia College. The school served all grades through college level, emphasizing vocational training as well as the arts and sciences. The institution was housed in a three-story frame structure on this four-acre fenced site. There were 40 students in the first class and the enrollment increased to 578 by the 1893-1894 school year. Students from a large section of North Texas studied at this coeducational facility. Howell Lake Piner (1858-1935) served from 1890-1895 as the school's first president. He was born in Kentucky, reared in Honey Grove, Texas, and received his education at Vanderbilt University. After selling his interest in Grayson College, Whitewright, Texas, Piner came to Columbia and skillfully directed the development of the institution. As the area grew, Van Alstyne residents recognized the need for a community high school. Columbia College became part of the Van Alstyne Public School System in 1906. The college building continued to serve the schools until 1915 when it was destroyed by fire. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 19 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 22 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• Boy Scout Troop 1 (Troop 44) — steps away
• Howe Lodge No. 430, A. F. & A.M. — 0.2 mi
• First Christian Church — 0.4 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Van Alstyne — 0.4 mi